


Cops and Robbers for Grown-Ups

by matrixrefugee



Category: Castle
Genre: Gen, Mild Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 09:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17916503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: A LARP goes wrong. Beckett and company are on the case.





	Cops and Robbers for Grown-Ups

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/profile)[comment_fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/)'s [Castle, Castle/Beckett, their next case is the death of a Nikki Heat LARPer ( live action role-playing gamer)](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/311643.html?thread=56770139#t56770139) WARNING: Mild grue and swipes at Internet censorship.

The brunette was dressed well, heels, dress slacks and all: the badge clipped to her belt and the sidearm fallen from her hand looked real, but the orange sticker on the stock and the laser pointer in the muzzle were a dead giveaway.

The bullet holes in her chest however, were very real and very bloody.

"You're going to love this one, Castle," Beckett said, holding up a frayed mass-market paperback copy of "Heat Rises" in a gloved hand. "Found this in the vic's pocket. Fangirl vigilante who got in too deep?"

"Whoa, if I was gonna snuff Nikki Heat, I was gonna send her out in a much more flashy way, not taking a handful of slugs to the chest," Castle said, almost rearing back from the body.

"What's with the pale face, Castle? Thought you'd gotten used to the juicy ones," Esposito twitted.

"Maybe he's seen one too many and it put 'm over the edge," Ryan added.

"No, no, I know this girl: Alison Maguire. I met her at a con last year; she's got a crime LARP group, she plays Nikki Heat," Castle said.

"LARP? is that what they're calling it now?" Esposito asked, smirking.

"Live Action Role Play," Beckett put in. "Some people dress up in tinfoil armor and boff each other with Nerf swords, pretending they're slaying dragons."

"Were you the one with the sword, Beckett?" Castle asked, knowingly. "'Cause you sure know a lot about it."

"I played cops and robbers as much as the rest of the neighborhood kids," Beckett replied patiently.

"So she does the equivalent of cops and robbers for grown-ups?" Ryan said.

"That legal, 'cause they're kinda jackin' yer girl, Castle," Esposito asked, looking from Castle to the body.

"It's not illegal: they got their website and their Facebook all disclaimered up," Castle said. " 'We do not own Nikki Heat or any other characters which are the property of Richard Castle'," he added, in a fruity legal disclaimer-announcer voice.

"No chance someone gunned her down for being a fangirl, unless the Feds are taking down LARPers along with video-sharing sites," Beckett said.

"Fangirl vigilante who got in over her head?" Ryan suggested.

"Nope, I think this is a simple case of her being in the wrong place at the wrong time," Beckett said, looking around at the alleyway where they stood.

"Unless...someone got mad because their character got toasted and they had to roll a new one, so they decided to get even," Castle said. "RP groups can get pretty ugly sometimes. Remember that guy with schizophrenia in the 1970s who thought that D&D had caused him to get possessed by the devil?"

"Castle, I'd like to think this is a much more mundane murder."

"Oooh, alliteration, Beckett? You make it sound so sexy."

"You should hear me do Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers."


End file.
